The Legend of Jumper 07: Metroid
by Omega Overlord
Summary: A mysterious entity invades the universe of Metroid, one of terrifying, incomprehensible power. And the galaxy will shudder as his presence warps what would have been. Tallon VI, Aether, and the planets of the phazon crisis.
1. Prologue: The Drop In

Author's Notes: To get this out of the way right off, this is a Jumpchain fanfic, and the _seventh_ in the chain. So, do not go into this expecting the drop-in Hero to face much in the way of difficult encounters. Being completely overpowered is rather inherent to Jumpchains. If you're here for shenanigans, you'll probably have a much better time.

And no, you didn't miss six stories. This is just the first Jump I've done in this chain that I felt like writing a story for. As other Jumps I've taken either didn't suit me to narrate, or were just obnoxiously long. Example, in the Warhammer 40K: Space Marine Jump I took, I took a Drawback that extended the length of that Jump to roughly 1,280 years instead of the standard 10. So, naturally I am not going to write that length of time out. I'm doing this to have fun, and that much writing of little but 'war, war, war' is not fun.

Prologue: The Drop-In

Tallon VI: Overworld

Samus Aran, galactic bounty-hunter and bane of the Space Pirates, carefully tread her way back towards her ship's landing site. Familiar she might have become with the local terrain, and of the flora and fauna therein, it paid to keep a wary eye out regardless. Never knew when the Pirates would try and launch an ambush. Or when some mutated wildlife would crash though a wall and try to eat her. She'd dealt with that enough over the course of her career for it to be ingrained. But the zoomers and other passive life, she could do with just walking the right way, ergo, not stepping on them. After all, what kind of Hunter would she be if she suffered from such a simple life form?

One shot had her through to what she considered the only currently idyllic place on the planet. She knew, of course, that the Pirates were looking for her ship, but their technology paled in comparison to that of the Chozo. They would never find it, unless they got stupid lucky. And hopefully she wouldn't be on this planet long enough for the odds to bear out in their eventual favor.

She paused, slowly looking between the route towards the crashed Pirate frigate and the upper path on the edge of the area she had not taken yet. She'd seen a large Chozo structure on her landing approach, so, perhaps that would be worth a look? Her HUD had marked a curious power signature beyond the frigate, so… decisions. A preliminary investigation had shown that the frigate was flooded, but with the gravity suit she should be able to traverse it with no trouble.

She nodded once to herself, making her choice. The structure wasn't going anywhere, as the other ruins clearly showed. And the frigate would likely lead her to more Space Pirates to kill. Effectively making the choice for her. Though, perhaps it would be wise to take a moment to restock at her ship? She started stepping towards her ship, a small measure of peace creeping over her as she approached the one place on this planet she would wholly call 'safe.'

A voice boomed out of the ether. "Samus Aran."

She whirled on the spot, aiming her arm cannon in the same smooth motion. There was a figure perched up in the recess of the upper path and it was, in a word, _imposing_. A nearly eight foot humanoid in jet-black, seemingly somewhat scorched, armor with gleaming red eyes slowly stood, marching slowly, purposefully towards the edge where it stopped for a moment, affixing her with a glare that inexplicably sent a chill down her spine.

The figure jumped down, moving with an impossible smoothness for something so obnoxiously over-armored, and hefted an arm cannon visually similar to her own in what could be construed as a salute. "Nothing personal, you understand. You're just a job."

Well, if prior actions hadn't been hostile, that declaration clinched it. She started to lift her hand to her helmet to engage her scan visor while the initial volley of energy pellets, ostensibly identical to her Power Beam, flew her way. The red, speeding pellets were aimed with precision despite the volume of fire, but it wasn't too difficult for her to dive and roll around them. Her scan visor's line of sight was disrupted several times with the flips and evades she had to make to avoid the incoming fire, but she pieced together enough of a scan.

Her HUD beeped negatively. 'No Data Found.'

She paused for an infinitesimal moment, stunned that her suit couldn't pull _anything_ on this individual. Furthermore, why wasn't this person showing up on her suit's radar? That momentary lull was enough for a few of her enemy's shots to land, metaphorical pinpricks they might have been. She chastised herself for the lapse anyway, not unfamiliar herself with wearing down powerful enemies with little blows just like those.

The attacker commented. "Figured it wouldn't do much, but hey, never know." The distinctive sound, identical to her own, of a beam weapon being changed was heard. "Time to take off the kid gloves."

She felt mildly insulted that this person would even consider using 'kid gloves' on her to begin with and, undaunted by the lack of analysis, she turned her own power beam on this other "bounty hunter," firing off a volley of several shots aimed square for her target's center of mass. They did not even bother to move, and her shots all wildly ricocheted off of the armor into the air with a tiny spat of sparks each time.

The target aimed their arm cannon, violent green energy gathering at its tip. "That's cute, my turn."

She only just avoided the discharge, diving away from a blast that carved a deep furrow in the earth behind her. What obnoxiously powerful weapon was this hunter packing? Well, she had more tricks up her sleeve too. With a quick adjustment she switched to the wave beam, and immediately started charging a shot.

Her stationary enemy lazily spoke. "Well aren't you a squirrely target. Kind of just delaying the inevitable, I'll have you know."

Not responding, vocally or otherwise, to this statement of boundless arrogance she rolled to the right, stopped in a firing position, and let the electric charge fly. Her enemy however, in an insulting mirror of her immediate actions, rolled forward _over_ her shot and did the exact same thing. Unfortunately, given the distance covered, her opponent was far too close for her to react to the retaliatory shot in time. That angry blast of viridian energy took her square in the chest, blew her back at least ten feet, and slammed her into the area's perimeter. Gritting her teeth and fighting through the pain such an impact caused, she dove behind a large rock to buy herself a moment to think.

The power beam wasn't effective. They could dodge the wave beam. Maybe a cordite battle suit? She'd need to use super missiles then, and she'd need to make sure she actually hit them. Ice beam to the foot, and then super missile? That could work. Wait, why wasn't the other hunter trying to pursue…?

Her answer was given when her piece of cover was soundly penetrated, catching her in the side with a blow no less intense than the one she'd been struck with no stone in the way. Turning her mind off from the pain, she was again forced to wonder what terrible power that weapon system possessed. Regardless, she had a plan. A simple one, but it was far better than nothing. They wouldn't dodge if she shot for the foot, right?

Switching to the ice beam she charged it up as she moved from cover, ducking her head as the immediate barrage of verdant bolts only just missed her. She stopped on a dime, crouched, pivoted, and launched her shot towards her target's left leg. They again didn't bother to move, only pausing and glancing down at the leg that was now encased in ice and, more importantly, stuck to the ground. She took full advantage of their lapse in attention, swapping to the power beam, charging it up just enough, and launching a super missile square into the other hunter's chest. The miniscule cloud of smoke cleared… and nothing. Her super missile hadn't even left a minute scratch.

Her adversary, an obvious smug note to their voice, commented. "Now what did I say about the inevitable?" Their arm cannon dissolved into data, revealing an armored mitt identical to their free hand. "This whole 'shooting' game is getting old. Time to get up close and _personal_."

With a slight twitch her adversary shattered the ice encasing their leg and _lunged_ at her with an impossible level of speed for something so big. Almost before she could blink the behemoth humanoid was on her, fist primed for a haymaker. She slipped to the side, only to realize too late that the fist was a feint. And she learned this by having her opponent's knee crash into her abdomen with, incomprehensibly, even more force than the solid-stone piercing beam weapon they'd been firing.

She was thrown to the walls by the blow, and her attacker was on her immediately, pinning her arm cannon to the unyielding stone with a grip she could feel through her armor. "Oh no, you look kind of screwed right now." They punctuated their taunt with a punch to her helmet. "How unfortunate that all of your offense is tied to this one weapon. You should have thought of that." Another knee to her middle.

Speech was dispensed with, in favor of repeated, ravaging blows to her helmet and core. Her suit's shields dropped horribly with each hit, even as she felt every blow with the flesh beneath. She felt baffled, between repeatedly having her bell rung. How could she have been ignorant of such an individual? How could the Federation? If her most powerful weapons were useless… She didn't have the time to finish the mental question, as the oblivion of unconsciousness took her.


	2. Chapter 1: A Different Side

Author's Note: Text contained *as such* denotes a Perk or Item from the Jump that I took, and will be included if I feel it necessary to explain what in hell my Jumper is doing.

Chapter 1: A Different Side

Samus Aran slowly felt… wait… felt? Then, she wasn't…

With the confusing realization that she wasn't dead, multiple times affirmed by the steady pulses of pain reverberating through her head, she forced her eyes open to find herself on the ground, staring into the same sky as there had been over her landing site. How, how was she still alive? Wait…

Through her pounding headache she heard a small sound, whistling, as one might hear from a human's mouth. Struggling to do so, as her limbs seemingly didn't want to obey her brain, she turned to look at the source. It was the same hulking brute of a humanoid, just, they were seated on the ground not five feet away, their helmet was off, and they were whistling away to an unknown tune with the biggest of smiles on their face.

She must have made some noise, because said individual turned to look at her. "Oh good, you're awake!"

As surprising as the shift in demeanor was, the tone of voice was equally so. Far from cold and professional, this character seemed, well, the exact opposite. That smile he, or at least their facial structure led her to believe it was a 'he,' wore had smoothly morphed into a self-sure little smirk that she found vaguely irritating. As casual as casual could be… or so she figured. General human interaction was very far outside of her wheelhouse.

The figure made a small sound, resembling a laugh. "Heh, you really don't talk much, do you? I would have at least figured a 'how the hell did you beat me so hard,' maybe in not so many words." She scowled, not particularly pleased to be reminded of her first loss, and the other's grin only widened. "Hey, don't feel bad." One of the man's hands touched the chest of his armor. "When you have well over a thousand years of warfare experience and kit as obnoxiously overpowered as mine is for this universe, there isn't anything you could have done to win. And I'm just being blunt about that. Nothing you can get your hands on in this universe can even scratch Cataphractii-Pattern Terminator Armor."

Her expression did not change. Though, in the back of her mind she had to wonder if this man, she was just going to go with that based off of appearance, was quite sane. "A thousand years?" If he were that old the Chozo would have known about him, doubly so if he were as powerful as he claimed. And "Cataphractii-Pattern Terminator Armor?" She found it almost impossibly hard to believe that something so insurmountably more powerful than her Chozo heritage existed… "Almost," being the operative word. She _had_ failed in a particularly horrid fashion to even scratch his armor, and that was a _very_ bitter pill to swallow.

Clearly reacting to her obvious displeasure, the man stood, his grin becoming mildly more apologetic. "Ok, well, I can see you need a bit of time to cool off. So…" They put their hands together gently in front of them. "… I'm sorry. Sometimes it takes a little while for my mind to catch up to myself whenever I drop in to a new universe and all I've got to go on is what's around me." He started to chuckle a little. "I mean, Federation wants my ass on a dissection table. So do the Space Pirates. Bounty hunting is really kind of the go to thing out here. And, so, I may have taken an anonymous bounty for combat data on you, from the Space Pirates." The man shrugged, a very impressive gesture given the sheer bulk of his armor. "Again, all of my mind wasn't with me. But they may start trying to grapple with you en mass instead of trying to shoot you, like, ever." The grin became cheesy as he backed away. "So have fun, again, so sorry for bruising your ego, and your flesh." His backwards walk stopped at the hatch to leave the area. "I'm gonna go now."

With a small motion, what was it, a donkey kick? The man smashed open the hatch and crouched backwards through it, shoulders screeching against the ruined metal frame. And just like that, he was gone, save for the fading sound of his massive armor suit clomping off into the distance. She quietly put a hand to her forehead, feeling a headache not just from lingering post-beating trauma, but now mental, what was the phrase, mindfuckery? Regardless, she assumed she would just need to file this individual away under 'dangerous' and 'possibly mad' if she ever ran across him again.

She shot a glance sideways, and was pleased to find that her ship seemed completely unharmed. She'd patch up her suit, head towards that energy signature beyond the crashed frigate, and put this nonsensical mess behind her… Though she would bear in mind what he'd said about the Space Pirates trying to engage in close-quarters combat. And if Ridly took that information to heart… She scowled even more as she climbed to her feet and walked towards her ship.

Tallon Overworld:

Jumper, or rather Jacob, slowly marched along through the canyon that led towards the Chozo ruins, humming aloud the Metroid Prime theme to himself as he went. It was where he was standing, after all, though he could have arrived here under better circumstances. But, by the same token, he had to admit it was also a little bit funny that he hadn't been on-planet for more than an hour before beating the piss out of the star of the franchise. It wasn't surprising to him that he'd done it, he was just amused that it had happened so fast.

He shrugged to himself, pausing briefly in his forward progress to avoid stomping on one of the innocent zoomers crawling around. "Well what can I do? Jump-induced drama is inevitable when I understand where I am." He paused at the junction in the canyon, openly, and vocally, contemplating what to do. "Ok, so, is there anything here that I want? Something Sammy back there hasn't scarfed up already…" He did a quick inventory, checking what Metroid-related gear he had on hand in his hybrid suit. "Power beam, Nova beam…" He paused, realizing that was it for beam weapons. "Huh, well 'Nova beam.' Really can't do much better than that in-universe unless I start splicing Phazon into the mix. And everyone and their brother should probably know that's a bad idea." He did a quick mental recap, charting out the general route Samus would be taking to "victory" on Tallon IV. "Wait, Oooh hoo hoo, Plasma beam!" And almost immediately, he realized it was a bad idea. "Fuck. I yoink that toy and Samus won't be able to enter the lower levels of the mines. And if she doesn't do that, she doesn't fight the Omega Pirate. If she doesn't fight the Omega Pirate, she doesn't get the Phazon Suit. And if she doesn't get the Phazon Suit, she literally can't finish the adventure." He rolled his eyes massively. "Fucks sake, I never took the time to think about how much Metroid leans on a very specific chain of dominos."

Of course, one of those dominoes resulted in the creation of Dark Samus. And, considering the pain that evil clone would cause it might be for the greater good for him to cut that out before it could start… but he wasn't going to. He was here for adventure damn it, and Dark Samus made things happen for him to fix. In the privacy of his own head he knew full well that made him sound like a selfish jackass, and maybe he was, but he was here for ten years. Ten years of the Federation and the Space Pirates gunning for his ass. They probably couldn't get him with anything short of orbital bombardment, but he was going to stay far away from any possibility of that happening. And if both sides got fucked up as they were supposed to, partially because of Dark Samus, he would happily allow that to happen. And frankly, weren't the Prime 3 planets mostly deserted anyway? He couldn't remember right now…

He shrugged again. "Who cares? Now, back to the topic of new toys…"

If everything left for Samus to collect was essential, then, what about the Space Pirates? Surely they had a nice piece of gear he could help himself to…

He clapped as the thought came to him. "The cloaking tech, YES! Oh holy shit think of how terrifying that is! A terminator armored Space Marine, that's also INVISIBLE!" He immediately pulled up the area map on his HUD, only to find it almost completely empty save the two 'rooms' he had been in recently. "Well, shit. I played this when I was a kid. I don't remember the damn labyrinth!"

That was mostly true. He could recall the overall layout of the place; Chozo Ruins over here, Magmoor Caverns there… just not the metaphorical wires running between them. If he didn't want to step on Samus's toes, that meant he'd need to head for the Phendrana Drifts and crash into the Pirate's research base. Doing the deed once he got there wouldn't be a problem. He was certain that Pirate weaponry was as laughably weak against terminator armor as Samus's weapons had been. It, was just a matter of getting there.

He looked left, and right, talking himself through it. "Ok. I'm pretty sure going right gets me directly to the Chozo Ruins, the kiddie area where Samus reacquired her basic gear. Not sure if there's an elevator to Phendrana from there." He rolled his eyes at the thought. "Elevators, elevators, elevators. Did the Chozo not know how to fucking walk?" He shook his head once and looked to his left. "And that way… off into the overworld. I think there's a way down to Magmoor that way, and that volcanic pisshole connects to everywhere, even the mines, and it's really easy to navigate, being more or less one long tunnel string."

He looked left, right, and back again. Then he took two steps towards the Ruins, only to change his mind and spin about back to the left.

Phendrana Drifts: Pirate Base

Jacob let out an exasperated sigh as he finally set eyes on the utilitarian structure of the Space Pirate base, absently putting a bolt round through one of the local arthropod wildlife. The bugs weren't a threat to him at all, but it was a massive nuisance the way they kept flying into his face trying to sting him. The rest of the wildlife had been just as hostile, and just as uselessly annoying.

He paused, eying the floating platforms. "So funny that the environments seem SO specifically designed for Samus alone." He mapped out the path he'd have to take, ignoring the morph ball stuff around the area walls. "Yep, totally not specifically designed. Like they KNEW she'd be here and designed their whole planet to accommodate Samus's exploration after everything they built fell into ruins…"

He rolled his eyes at the massive contrivance. Sure, the Chozo were mildly precognitive, he was aware of that. But building morph ball lanes into uninhabited cave roofs? His bullshit alarms could not ring any louder. Granted he wasn't thinking about this area specifically, but it was a pointed observation regardless.

He chuckled. "Well, not really my problem. I'm here for looting right now." He glanced up, mentally running through his jump path again. "And, just a bit of platforming stands between me and the power of invisibility!"

He squared up, leapt, and immediately had to jump again in a semi-panic as the platform almost instantly failed to support him. In retrospect, he should have expected that. Cataphractii terminator armor was MUCH bigger and heavier than any Chozo gear, after all.

Situated at the top of the area's central spire, he turned and looked down at the crashed, smoking wreckage that he'd left behind below. "I am winning myself no points with Samus or dead bird-people like this." He glanced towards the next hatch ahead, shrugged, and started walking. "Meh, worst I'll have to deal with is angry ghosts. And as Samus proves later, they are perfectly vulnerable to getting destroyed. Hell, the Pirates manage to do the same, and they're massively incompetent at the best of times."

Completely unconcerned for collateral damage insofar as Pirate structures were concerned, he opened the way ahead with one brutish forward kick. The steel shattered with an ear-splitting shriek, and he paused for the briefest of moments to savor the idea of the alarms blaring deeper inside at his intrusion.

He stepped into the base, pausing and raising his trusty Bolter towards the entry hallway. "Now, Shadow Pirate should be jumping towards me…" Five seconds passed, nothing. "Guess not." He shrugged and started walking again. "No big deal, gonna be plenty of them inside. I think, what, three plus in the next room by itself? I'll have that stealth tech in no time."

He kicked the next hatch open as well, mildly delighted at the brazen destruction, and paused to slowly scan the ceiling where he knew the Shadow Pirates would be just hanging out, waiting for him to walk by beneath them. True to their name, they were rather difficult to spot in the darkness. But, given that he knew they were there, and a bit of cheating from the X-ray visor he'd picked on entry to this universe, he picked out four targets. Four, essentially, loot boxes to him.

He raised his Bolter, setting the sight square on the dangling head of one of the Shadow Pirates, the one closest to him. "You gonna move at all when I've got a gun pointed at ya? I mean, I can obviously see you…" He waited three seconds, holding his gun steady. "… Guess not."

He tapped the trigger, squeezing off that single, hilariously powerful round. The Pirate's head, and neck, exploded with a wet crunch as the now senseless body thumped to the floor. Apparently, that shot was enough of a cue, as the other Shadow Pirates leapt down to face him.

He smirked at they rushed towards him. "Heh, sure, that'll work. Doesn't even work on Samus." He paused, struck by a thought. "Well, never worked on me when I was playing as Samus. Maybe she herself isn't so observant…" He heard a click, and looked down to see one of the Shadow Pirate's bayonets pressed point first to the carapace of his armor. "Right, forgot you were there for a second."

Giving that Pirate a single moment to feel apocalyptically stupid, he hauled off and punched the crustacean alien in its ugly mug, more or less duplicating what he'd done to its compatriot with a Bolter shell. He then plugged the next one in the head and, going for a bit of style, he shot out both knees of the last Shadow Pirate before putting two in the chest, all before it hit the ground.

Smirking like a demon, he stepped over to the body of his first kill in the room. "Damn I'm good. More importantly though, did I leave enough of you intact to salvage the stealth tech…" He brought his hand up to the side of his helmet and engaged the Scan Visor. "Waiting, waiting…" The scan beeped positive. "Yes!"

He paused momentarily, unsure of how to proceed simply by virtue of never taking advantage of this particular feature he'd picked up before.

*Legendary [600sp] The true power behind Chozo technology is not merely its staying power over the course of centuries, but how easily it can integrate both the best of its own world and the best of other worlds. In short, the power armor can take damaged or stolen technological devices from a foe or an ally, and immediately install it without error or fuss. Taking the module behind a flamethrower will give you that same flamethrower's ability, taking augmented limbs that enabled a foe to jump extremely high will let you do the same thing. As long as the technology still has some capacity to function, you can integrate it immediately with your power armor. The only downside is that the energy and size requirements do not change – space station-sized superweapons still require more power and space than a normal person-sized power armor can hope to generate, and generally will not function without some modifications on your part. Still, you'll find that the discarded weapons of foes will be ever more useful in your hands.*

It told him that he _could_ , just not _how_.

He thought for a moment, vocalizing to himself. "Well, Samus just walks into whatever tech she's picking up. Why not try that, just to see if it works. If not, I'll look stupid for about two seconds and try something else."

Putting action to his words, he stepped over the corpse of his designated target… and nothing happened. He really should have expected that, given that as hard as it was to avoid the comparison, he was NOT in fact playing a video game right now. Rolling his eyes, and mildly irritated that he could imagine a Space Pirate watching him through a security feed and… oh, wait, *Noise in the Void* took care of that. Scanners and cameras couldn't track him, duh.

He looked down at the corpse, smirking again. "Ok you, I don't know, recall, or care if there is an appreciable difference between Space Pirates being male or female. So I'm just going to go for the brute-force idea of tearing that stealth system off of you and slapping it onto my armor's carapace. If that doesn't work, I don't know what will."

Using his knife, because every Space Marine had one just in case, even a Devastator like him, he started peeling the thin fabric off of his victim, letting his mind and gaze wander around the chamber as he went. Assuming he figured out how to integrate his prize, what else could he, or would he, do on this planet before calling it quits and leaving Samus to do her thing and fight Metroid Prime? He'd already established, at least to himself, that there were no items left that he could take without screwing Samus's "adventure" over. So…

His gaze fell upon a door/hatch/passageway/whatever in the back of the room. Not the hatch Samus would use to leave, but the locked one, the one that required a Space Pirate bio-scan to proceed through. Doubtless the bulk of the Pirate presence in this base was nice and cozy behind there, feeling safe in the assumption that they couldn't be reached by assailants… Well, mass murder was always a good way to pass some time. And killing Space Pirates benefitted both him and Samus in the long run.

He peeled off the chest section of his victim's suit, draping it across his shoulders given the vast discrepancy between the size of a Space Pirate and a suit of Cataphractii terminator armor… and a message proudly popped up in his HUD, 'Phantom Stealth System acquired.' He mentally played the Metroid "item acquired" jingle.

Mentally engaging the stealth system he held up his right gauntlet, pleased as punch to see, or rather, not see his own hand without a respectable amount of effort on his eyes part. "So, *Noise in the Void* makes me undetectable to scanners, cameras, and radar. And this 'Phantom' system makes me almost completely invisible to the naked eye?" He cackled out loud. "Oh this combo is fucking broken!" Grinning once again like a demon, he turned his gaze back to the bio-scan hatch. "Now, how many space crabs do I get to riddle with bullets today…?"

He cackled as he advanced, hauling his Heavy Bolter out of the ether as he moved. Because why the fuck not?

Tallon IV: Phazon Mines

Samus Aran let out a long sigh as she walked back out into the mine's processing yard, physically and mentally drained from this experience she'd just left. That little warning she'd received from her mystery assailant, perfectly accurate. The Pirates had spent FAR more time rushing her down and trying to wrestle her to the ground than they'd spent shooting at her. She'd come out of it fine, but the added stress of the situation, of the weakness she now knew her combat systems had, was exhausting. For the time being, she was more than happy to leave this place behind while she acquired additional gear elsewhere.

Halfway to the exit, outright ignoring the turret on the right-side wall taking scattered shots at her, the earth suffered such a violent tremor she was very nearly thrown to the ground. This was accompanied by an explosion she heard a mere couple of seconds later, given how sound traveled faster through solid matter than it did through air. What in blazes…?

Her HUD seized her attention, dragging its Map out and flying over to the Phendrana Drifts. More specifically, the heart of the Space Pirates base out there. The rather obvious flag her computer put over the area was 'extreme seismic event detected.' No, really?

She recovered her balance, looking off into the sky towards the Drifts. Was this, that other entity's work? What… what terrible power did they actually have? None of the weapon systems she'd seen could cause something even close to that level of devastation. Could, they have actually been telling the truth about being an extra-dimensional entity? That was the only thing she could think of right now that made sense…

The turret, not bothered by the tremor, knocked her out of her bewildered mental state with a hit to her core, and her instincts took over as she vengefully moved to engage. But, in the back of her head she couldn't help but keep thinking about that other figure…

Tallon IV: Phendrana Drifts

Jacob proudly strode through the smoldering, twisted metal remains of the Pirate base, swaggering as he moved. Had it been hard to butcher them en mass? Absolutely not, exactly as he had assumed. Had it been fun? Hell to the yes. And blowing the whole place up was something the game had never let him do. He paused at the edge of the smoking crater, recalling that there was one critical component to Samus's adventure on this planet that he might have mucked with by blowing the base up. The Artifact, which one, by name, he couldn't be bothered to recall, but it was supposed to be stowed behind/beneath the base Control Tower. The tower that he'd just reduced to rubble.

He spun around, laughing nervously. "Ha, ok, floating alien glyph, can't be that hard to find, right?"

As he pawed through the rubble it occurred to him, again on a meta level, how bullshit it was that the Chozo would know that the Space Pirates would build their control tower right on top of the artifact, far enough in advance to encode that hint in one of the obelisks in the temple over the Impact Crater. It was hilariously inconsistent. If they were THAT precognitive, they would have known the phazon meteor was coming, and done something more substantial about it. Like, oh, getting the hell out of dodge before they devolved into phazon-corrupted wraiths that attacked anything living. They had the technology. He knew that, or at least they HAD, past-tense. He couldn't remember the specifics of how much "in-tune with nature" the Chozo on this particular planet had let themselves be before the meteor hit.

He shoved aside a twisted beam, and found the prize. "Oh good, good, I was worried for a second that I'd have to cheapen Sammy's win here by cracking the temple open like an egg." He chuckled a bit. "That, and she'd probably be pretty pissed if I did that." He looked back at the artifact, a thought occurring to him. "Well, collecting the artifacts is really just a bunch of running around. Wouldn't really be a loss to Sammy's experience if I just, oh, ran around and did that bit of legwork for her. Might even win me some points if I let her know it was me. I mean, they aren't flowers or nothing, but much more useful." He thought about it for a few more seconds, and nodded to himself. "Talked myself into it. Let's go on a treasure hunt!" He grabbed the artifact, letting it blip away intro that data-hammerspace that all the other trinkets got shunted to. "Hell, I'm happy to just have something else to do. Floating around in the void is boring." He started walking, dictating his destinations as he went. "Ok, so the next closest artifact is at Phendrana's Edge, way at the top, behind a hidden wall… And then the other one in Phendrana is hidden in that temple near where Sammy picks up the… wave beam? And fights the big sheggoth…"

Tallon IV: Tallon Overworld

Samus Aran exhaustedly staggered back into her landing site, momentarily leaning on the edge of the hatch to catch her breath. The mines the second time around… oh why did that other bounty hunter have to share that combat data? Regular Pirates and the beam troopers had been stressful enough, but the Omega Pirate… she'd been pinned and pummeled nearly to death before she dislocated her arm to make the beast flinch and let her go. And still, that thing's blows had hurt LESS than the enigmatic figure from before.

She sucked in a deep breath before taking about ten steps forward, and tripped over a bit of uneven terrain. Embarrassing as it was, it served only to highlight why she'd come back here. She was in no shape to keep going right now. She needed a break, maybe a short nap if she could justify it. She hadn't been pummeled this badly in… ever.

Groaning, she forced herself up to one knee, refusing to stay in this state any longer than necessary. But as she lifted her gaze back towards her ship, something out of place caught her attention. Just in front of her ship, piled haphazardly on the ground, was a cluster of… her mind sparked as she realized that she was looking at utterly priceless Chozo artifacts. Fatigue and pain momentarily forgotten, she rose and cast her baffled gaze about, counting. Twelve, twelve priceless artifacts just, left here? Who…

And then she saw it. Stuck to the front of her ship with a tiny piece of plas-tape was a simple piece of white plastic with a messy, if legible scrawl on it that read "I'm sorry." Well, that made the identity of the gift-giver perfectly clear. No one else on this planet had any inkling whatsoever to apologize for anything. Even if at the time the spoken apologies had sounded, to her, hollow and trite.

She held a hand to the side of her helmet, almost beyond able to process this right now, but she did notice something else. The artifacts were not lumped as messily as she had thought at first glance. They were, arranged in an arrow? She followed the direction with her eyes, and spotted another plastic placard on the ledge that the other hunter had first appeared from. This one simple read "This way," above a large, black arrow. Injuries still forgotten, she climbed up to the ledge… and screamed out of sheer shock as she found Ridly, or, more specifically his head, staked to the ground, with what appeared to be his own tail. There was another note tacked to the tail, a rather smugly phrased "You're welcome."

Breathing hard from the sudden onset of fear, she slowly composed herself, just as slowly processing everything that had come to light over the last several seconds. The artifacts could have explained all of the damage she'd seen in the mines when she'd gone back through. Morph Ball tunnels excavated, hatches smashed open, dead Pirate bodies littered like leaves in various states of chunky mess. Would she find more of that over the rest of the planet if she looked? Probably, his presence seemed rather conducive to indiscriminate destruction. Ridly though, she'd almost forgotten that the dragon was still on-planet. Her last sighting of him being a mere shadow passing over the Phendrana region. Not that she wasn't displeased that she wouldn't have to throw down with him again. But…

She looked back towards the severed, impaled head. She'd never imagined Ridly being trounced so completely. But, she supposed at this point she really shouldn't look a gift horse in the mouth. That was the phrase, right? Well… regardless, her ship was calling to her again as her body reasserted its desire for rest. She would deal with what lay within the Impact Crater in a little bit, as soon as she recovered.


	3. Chapter 2: Usurpation

Author's Note: Text contained *as such* denotes a Perk or Item from a Jump that I took, and will be included if I feel it necessary to explain what in hell my Jumper is doing.

Chapter 2: Usurpation

Planet Aether: High Orbit

Samus Aran quietly reviewed the mission brief in the silence of her ship, refreshing herself one last time before making her approach to the storm-covered planet floating in the void before her. At this point, if she were to hazard a guess, the storm had damaged the Federation Marine's ship and this mission could end up as simple as making planet-fall, finding the GF marines, and then coming back up to communicate their status back to the Federation. It _could_ end up being that simple, but she doubted it. Seldom did anything she walked into end up simple.

Case and point, her eyes turned to the file she'd left open on the screen off to her left, the status of her mystery "acquaintance" from Tallon IV. Searching for the open bounty that he'd intimated at was both simple and difficult given that on the one hand she didn't have a name to put to the face, and easy on the other because of how few individuals in the galaxy tottered about in such an obnoxiously large armor suit. She still didn't have a name, as none was listed in the description, but she _did_ have the litany of crimes the man was presumably guilty of. "Murder, terrorism, destruction of Federation property, murder of Federation personnel, crimes against sapients…" The last one really caught her attention though, "The total destruction of Drakon Prime." This gamut of vile deeds had earned a staggeringly large bounty, several hundred quintillion credits. More than the gross yearly income of several sectors, she was sure. And enough money for a person to retire immediately upon and squander lavishly without ever being able to spend it all. Not that she would retire if she collected… even if she could collect.

It'd been over a month, and she couldn't get that fight out of her head. Well, "fight" was probably being rather over-generous to herself, but, regardless, the fact still stood. Taking him at his word, she'd been metaphorical inches from annihilation, and by now she bore no delusions that he hadn't been completely capable of delivering. Which lent rather strongly to that litany of crimes being true. On the other hand… She wouldn't ever claim that she was an expert on reading people, but that second side of him, what he'd at least claimed was his "true" side, seemed far too earnest in retrospect to be guilty of blowing up a populated planet. But to that all she could think of was his convoluted justification for assaulting her, 'I was not myself.' Confusing was an understatement.

Shaking her head once to bring her focus back to the matter at hand, she eased her ship forward towards the planet Aether. Her ship computer had already plotted the optimal course for atmospheric entry and… She paused, as close as she was to the outer atmosphere her ship was picking up something new, an active comm buoy. And, it was sending a direct query to her ship? Mildly intrigued, and rather confident her ship systems could fight off a virus if this were some cleverly designed trap, she keyed in an acceptance of this buoy's query.

A video feed popped up in the center of her ship's display, recorded, as much was obvious from first sight. But the subject was-

None other than the man from Tallon IV showed up in the middle of the video, helmet off. " _Hey, Sammy…_ " They looked off to one side for a moment. " _Probably shouldn't call you that. Sorry, habit of mine. Anyways, seeing as I knew you'd show up at Aether I figured I'd leave this little missive behind to catch you before you entered atmo, as a courtesy. Just so you know in advance, the marines are all dead._ " Another pause, broken momentarily by an awkward smile. " _Ah ha, considering you've probably looked me up by now I just have to point out, I didn't do it. Local wildlife did. I've attached the scans proving this to this message in case you wanted to just bug out and tell the Federation 'job done.' But, I think I know you well enough to say you won't do that. So…_ " A small beep, both in-video and in real life. " _My landing coordinates, in case you felt like joining me. Fair warning though, my ship's quite a bit more rugged than yours. You go through that storm, lightning's probably going to fry your systems and you'll be stuck down here with me for a while._ " A genuine, if rather smug, smile. " _No obligation. I'm perfectly capable of handling a planetary, interdimensional war all by my lonesome! Cheers, see you if I see you._ "

The video ended, and she was once again struck with multiple layers of "what the hell" all at once. He "knew" she'd be here? "Interdimensional war?" For about a full minute she leaned forward in her seat, massaging her temples with two fingers each as she tried to process the absurdity of this. Was he precognitive like the Chozo? Did he, have some kind of worm in the Federation feeding him intel? How…?

She shook her head once, scowling down towards Aether's hidden surface. One thing he was definitely right about was that she wasn't just going to walk away from this without getting some answers. One, she didn't trust automatically any data provided by a man charged with killing an entire core planet. Two, that overly familiar tone he was taking unsettled her a bit, if she were honest with herself, and she wanted that explained. Three, "Interdimensional War" was a bit of a giant flag to be waving around. How could she not investigate a claim like that? Resolutely, she resumed her planetary descent.

Planet Aether:

Samus Aran marched towards the 'landing site' coordinates she'd been given, glowering inside. The lightning warning had proven prophetic, aggravatingly. She'd all but crashed out on the mesa, and further truth, the automatic repair systems indeed stated she could be stuck on-planet for several days, further worsening her mood. She hoped rather strongly at this point that the "invitation" she'd received wouldn't be laced with beam fire. Because that would make an already bad day rather obnoxiously more so. She wasn't dumb enough to engage in a second firefight with this man, at least not without significantly improving her power suit's combat parameters.

She took a short glance to the map in the corner of her HUD. While she might not currently have any hard geographical data on the surface, she could tell that the coordinates she'd received were fast approaching. Off of a guess, she figured that her 'target's,' she'd still call him that for now, landing sight was in that circular depressions just ahead. It lined up geographically, and it made tactical sense. An option she'd wished she'd had.

She marched up to the edge of the sinkhole, finding her assumption to be correct. Tucked rather firmly into the depression was a jumpship that was… rather as utterly brutish in design as she was expecting. The ship looked like a grey and black brick with engines rammed into one end. Although she would grudgingly admit, it seemed to have weathered the atmospheric storms without so much as a scorch-mark to show for it. Granted, with a black hull she probably wouldn't be able to tell anyway. Perhaps that was the point?

More importantly, she set eyes on the man himself, the presumed butcher of a trillion people… He was taking a nap. The man in full power armor, as bafflingly inflexible as it outwardly looked, had his feet kicked up on a rock, his arms meshed behind his helmetless head, and a contented smile plastered on his face as soft snores periodically floated up through the air. She found this baffling. He claimed that there was an "interdimensional war" going on, and yet he felt safe enough to blow it off and nap out in the open? Without his helmet no less?

Scowling furiously, with not a small measure of retribution in mind, she aimed her arm cannon and charged up a shot. One, if this worked, she would likely become the single richest woman in this entire quadrant of the galaxy, not that she knew what she would do with, or cared about, that much wealth. Two, if it didn't work, she had no inclination that she'd be suffering repercussions given how totally self-sure he had seemed last time. The charged blast flew true, impacting the sleeping man square in the side of his face, temporarily bathing it in energy… and once the miniature distortion abated she could clearly see that her shot had, again, done absolutely nothing in the way of damage. How obnoxiously tough was this man?

Damaged or not, he stirred, momentarily stretching before idly rubbing the side of his face that she'd shot before lazily turning his gaze upon her. "Hey, you decided to join me." He rose, that same utterly cock-sure air rising around him immediately. "You can come down here, you know, just so I don't have to raise my voice. I won't bite."

Nonplussed, even given that she hadn't really expected to hurt him, she conceded the invitation and stepped off the ledge to stand on the same ground as him. Once she did, she was struck again by how much just, bigger, he was. She understood that she was tall for humans, especially so for women, and he towered over her. Her head barely made it to the middle of his chest, even assuming that a portion of this height was due to his armor, as her power suit made her a little taller as well.

Her observations were interrupted by a comment from the man. "What, didn't get enough of an eyeful the first time?" His voice took on a tone she was unfamiliar with. "Need to see more?"

Pausing for just a moment, she scowled as she reminded herself of her reason for being here. As response she wordlessly, and digitally, flung his criminal file at him. She knew what was in it, she was more curious as to how he would react if confronted with a list of the accusations against him.

The man paused, opening the sent file on in a holographic fashion on his wrist. There was an initial look of curiosity about him, but that expression quickly faded back into what seemed his default, abject amusement. "Hah, ok, so…" He turned his gaze back to her. "About all of that. Mostly the Federation's fault."

All she could do was incredulously raise an eyebrow. Really? He was going to blame the Federation for him being credited with planetary homicide?

He rolled his eyes, clearly understanding her doubts without her saying anything. "Ok, so, story time I guess." He sat down on the rock he had been propping his feet up on, although this only brought his face down to eye-level with her. "I make my way to Drakon Prime. Federation and Space Pirates out for my corpse makes finding work, or something to do, a massive pain in the ass. I land, I start asking around, and, mind you, this was still before the bulk of my brain caught up with the dimensional-hopping me, and someone must have seen the bounty posting on me and called in the Federation." His hands enthusiastically gesticulated. "And BOOM, Federation capital ship jumps into orbit. I was essentially squatting out in the hinterlands of that planet, trying to avoid trouble, but no. They start sending great heaping swarms of drop-ships loaded with Marines to my position. Same greedy son of a bitch that called them in must have tipped them off to my impromptu 'house.' And, well, you've experience for how above personal combat metrics I am for this universe. They attack, I butcher them, but they keep coming. So, naturally I get a little bit pissed off about this, and I steal one of their ships and take it into high atmosphere, where the capital ship is waiting for me, the GFS Babylon. I board, smash my way to the bridge, and take out the admiral." At this point he shrugged, a tiny note of embarrassment seeping into his expression. "And, in the process I must have critically damaged the guidance systems, the power systems, or some combination of the two. The Babylon starts careening towards the planet, and, tough as I am, being point blank in that kind of detonation would in fact kill me, to say nothing of being stranded, floating in space after that. So I bolt back to the hangar, grab one of their drop ships, and vacate." He shrugged again. "The Babylon hits the planet, boom, and there is no more planet."

It, took her a moment to digest that sudden deluge of words. Once she had, well, on the surface, if he was telling the truth, it didn't _seem_ like there was any malice in him with regards to Drakon Prime. He framed it as one massive accident. But still, and her expression changed to reflect this, several trillion dead wasn't something to speak so callously about.

Either reading her expression, or sensing her feelings on the matter, the man rolled his eyes. "Yes, yes I get it. Several trillion lives isn't something to just hand-wave away. Like I mentioned last time though, given over a thousand years in a universe far more violent, and MUCH more grim-dark than this one, planetary deaths of that magnitude are almost a yearly thing." He shrugged again. "After the first thirty or so you get used to finding those things."

There was a very long, very uncomfortable silence as she tried to wrap her head around that statement. But again with this insistence that he was over a thousand years old. The face looking at her right now, still with that aggravating smirk, didn't look like he was even out of his twenties.

He stood back up, casting a glance towards his brick of a ship. "Well, ok, formalities I think." He held out a hand, palm up, towards his vessel. "Can I get you anything? Food? Drink? I got booze… admittedly I don't know exactly what cause I don't drink. And, I'm pretty sure there's a nice chunk of steak…" He paused, let out one short laugh, and brought his extended hand back to his chest plate. "And, just to get this out of the way, call me Jacob, if you feel like talking, anytime, ever." Another pause, which she didn't fill, more so out of spite at this point what with 'Jacob' trying to push her to talk. "Ok, all business no fun. I can work with that."

Jacob started to cross the small area, picking up a very large projectile weapon from behind the rock he had been sitting on, before moving to the perimeter near a gaping hole in the rock wall where she assumed a doorway had once been. "So, first things first, I'm guessing you're going to want to confirm the fate of the marines with your own two eyes. Right this way." His left hand made a grand flourish. "Ladies first."

Planet Aether: Temple Grounds

Samus Aran, had not thought her day could get worse after crash landing and, at least temporarily, getting stranded with someone SO utterly insufferable at every turn! And he just wouldn't, stop, TALKING! Between the inane babble she had been brought up to speed on the interdimensional war, between the Luminoth and the Ing. Although her introduction to that "plot thread" as he'd put it, had come at the expense of a shred of dignity.

She silently grimaced at the thought. Upon sighting the deceased Federation Marines she'd knelt to examine one, both out of respect and curiosity. Almost before she could react a shadow leapt out of the ground and entered the _dead_ trooper, upon which it had grabbed for her. She'd made a noise, one of shock, naked surprise mixed with a touch of fear. And Jacob was kind enough to chime in with a cheeky remark of, 'oh yeah, they get back up. Spoiler.' And mid motion on her part he'd used that odd projectile weapon of his to blow a hole a foot wide in the dead trooper's center of mass. He'd done that over and over since then, annihilating targets before she'd even had time to process that there was a threat. This was bad, primarily for the fact that having nothing to shoot at meant she had NO way of meaningfully distracting herself from the endless stream of words from her erstwhile "companion."

Jacob was still talking. "… And up ahead down another obnoxiously long elevator we have the Agon Wastes. Just as you might think from the name it's a dead, dusty desert with piss-poor grade animals and a small Space Pirate base." Her mood perked up a little at that, as only a dash of hatred could do. "… I banged around for a bit, scarfed up a bunch of nice toys and shiny prizes. But when I got to the front door of the Pirate base I just paused and thought to myself, 'Hey, Sammy would probably appreciate the opportunity to shoot some space crabs in the face. No skin off my ass if I wait around a bit.' So I walk back to my ship, take a little snooze, and surprise, here you are!" He paused for exactly two seconds. "Still nothing? Ok, I got all day."

… So that was his plan? He was looking at her silence as a brute would look at a wall? 'Bang on it long enough and it'll crack…?' At this rate he might be right.

They both stepped onto the elevator Jacob had mentioned, and as it started to drift down the "obnoxiously long" shaft Jacob started up again. "Ok, so let me tell you about my gun here, an Astartes Pattern Bolter…"

In the privacy of her own head, she screamed into the void. 'Please make it stop…'

Planet Aether: Agon Wastes

Jacob smiled happily to himself as he led the way into the central command chamber of the Pirate base, popping the head, as well as the upper half of the torso, off of another Pirate with one shot with a snap shot. He'd made the joke to Samus about, 'I'd say let's keep score, but my one-hit kills compared to your ten-plus shot kills just isn't worth the mental effort on either of our parts.' And he was nearly certain that the blonde was a just about there to blowing her top and laying into him. He found it funny.

Not 'funny' due to Samus being annoyed with him. That would just be an asshole move. He found it amusing because Samus was always out on the job by herself, she didn't have to deal with conversation or conversation starters. The sheer 'what the fuck-ery' of having someone else around trying to talk to her with complete determination must have been driving her absolutely mental. Especially since everyone else in this universe just seemed to accept Samus not talking… at least within the scope of the games. He didn't have the context of what went on between them, if anything was there at all.

He paused, noticing Samus starting to step towards the spatial anomaly that could become a portal to Dark Aether. "Hey, whoa, whoa. We don't need to bother with that." As soon as Samus turned to him he brought up his right arm and _flexed_. "We've got me!" Proving his point, he turned to the massive security door barring their progress off to one side, and, drawing power from the depths of his mind, turned the massive metal object into a pile of slag. "Hah? What did I tell you?"

* The Soul Devourer- 600

In the past, you got the chance to feed on the very heart of an Eldar craftworld. All those souls, they gave you strength. You fed and fed until you could eat no more and you gained a shocking amount of power, whether you destroyed the world in your feeding or not. Your psionic abilities are enough to tear battleships in two or render a titan into slag and, as long as you continue to feed on souls, they will continue to grow. Souls give you power, permanently increasing your psychic strength just a little for every one you eat and with all the food on offer to you, you could eat a lot of souls in the near future.*

Samus looked at the molten mess of the door, back to him, and back to the door. Still silent, but he could see her wide-eyed shock plain as day through her visor. Either she was simply incredibly impressed, or she was realizing that he could have done the same to her with a thought, and she was lucky as all hell that he hadn't. Granted, his brain at the time hadn't known that he _could_ perform psionic feats like that, but accidents could happen. He was glad that it hadn't. He much preferred Samus being alive and walking around. After all, he couldn't take her with him at the end of his ten years here if she was dead… He had work to do on that, she had to do so of her own volition, she had to _want_ to go with him. And right now he figured she just about hated him. It was fine, plenty of time left.

He cleared his throat, gesturing to the cleared path. "Shall we, milady?"

He received a short glare, and Samus took a long, obviously curious glance back towards the spatial distortion, but she did start walking towards him and the molten pile of slag he'd cleared. Merrily, he spun on his heel and started leading the way again. He remembered this path a little better than he remembered the layout of Tallon VI, so if his projections were correct, they were on their way to a little scuffle with a particular evil clone spawned of Samus not realizing when to back the fuck away from something. It went by many names; "cut-scene paralysis," "transformation window," or, as he called it, "shoot them in the fucking face while they're busy you wanker!" He liked using the word 'wanker.' It rolled off the tongue nice and it confused people most of the time when it was your insult of choice…

Agon Wastes: Pirate Base

Samus Aran quietly walked along in Jacob's wake, and yes, by this point that's what this felt like, like she was a… poetry had never been a strong point of hers… like she were a leaf getting dragged along in the whirlwind of a hurtling juggernaut. It was an apt comparison, she supposed. Jacob killed everything so fast and with such totality she actually felt on the edge of letting her guard loosen. Even the constant chatter, and self-aggrandizement, wasn't bothering her much anymore. He… had a rather… comforting presence? Was that right? She couldn't explain it…

She didn't even blink at the crash of metal shoulder crashing through metal hatch, too used to it by now to care, nor did the following announcement make her flinch much. "Next stop, Power Core. Phazon batteries and unstable explosive potential." Jacob turned to the glass panel behind him for about one second and back to her. "And just look- wait."

Surprised by the sudden shift in his usual casual tone she started from her own relaxed state and stepped forward to lay eyes on whatever was causing his 'distress.' Below, floating in the air and absorbing a huge amount of phazon from the core reactor, was what looked to be an almost identical copy of herself, only in black and electric, phazon blue. And on the other side, standing on the ground… was a similar figure mirroring Jacob.

The man next to her audibly vocalized a rather loud expletive. "Fuck." Jacob turned to her, his helmet dematerializing to reveal a genuinely distressed face. "Ok, ah, I completely forgot about that Drawback I took, and, it's standing right down there with your evil twin." His hands came together in an obviously pleading gesture. "Now, I know this is going to sound impossibly patronizing and condescending, but I really, really need you to get the hell out of here. Forty percent of me, and I'm just guessing on that because I really can't remember right now, is still WAY too much for you to handle."

Only momentarily confused by his cryptic words she quickly became offended, and then angry. Yes, Jacob had been killing and destroying before she could react for the last, what, hour? That didn't matter. She was a bounty hunter, and that, thing, down there wearing her image was going to get what it deserved, a swift death, at her hands. She was not some fragile princess that needed to run away at the first sign of danger. She-

Glass shattered, a horrific crunch of metal, bone, and flesh resounded, and a gigantic white spike erupted from Jacob's chest. His blood spattered across her suit, which promptly started to hiss and deplete her suits shields at a terrifying rate, and a strangled cry halfway between rage and pain tore from Jacob's throat.

The man looked down at her, face twisted into a horrifying visage. "I'M NOT ASKING!"

Before she could react one of Jacob's boots rose and hit her in the center of her stomach with more physical force than she had ever felt in one hit. Dimly, she was certain that most of her ribs had been pulverized, her spine snapped, and several organs ruptured. She was also aware, just as faintly, that the distance she flew before blacking out was more than what distance had existed between her and the wall. And again, at Jacob's hands, darkness claimed her.


	4. Chapter 3: A Personal Reality

Chapter 3: A Personal Reality

?

Samus Aran felt cool, hard metal beneath her, heard low electronic buzzing, saw a gentle light through lidded eyes… Before she opened her eyes she internally remarked to herself that this was becoming a bad habit of hers.

With a mild groan she parted her eyelids to look into that gentle light, finding it housed in a clean, sterile ceiling of white. Out of the corner of her eyes she saw two things. One, her power suit sat in a chair as if it were a person, concerning just for the fact that somehow, someone had been able to remove it without her acquiescence. Two, there was another figure waiting, right there at the side of what she could only assume by now was a hospital bed. The fact that this other wasn't paying enough attention to notice her waking was opportunity enough to observe both this figure and the room she was in.

Her initial assumption was correct, mostly. A hospital, she was not likely in. An independent medical chamber? More likely. The slab she was laying on was levitating about two feet above a pedestal in the floor, putting her at what would roughly be just over waist high on herself. The room was circular, and filled with many, many separate machines of… unknown function. But considering the injuries she knew she had taken from Jacob's forcible ejection of her involvement they had to be quite advanced. Without her scan visor she couldn't currently know anything more.

Moving on to the new figure… they were A, obviously robotic given the faintly glowing pink, pupil-less eyes, the segmented, delicate, metallic fingers, the shaped, rigid bowl-cut of their "hair," the unnatural configuration of the heels, the clear lack of clothing and the stark distinctions between various areas of synth-skin. B, clearly intended to be female, given the overall feminine structure of the face. The small nose, faintly plump lips, long artificial eyelashes. The overall, wide-hipped… curvy body structure. And C, bafflingly, designed to be obese. Large to a degree similar to Jacob, but in wholly the opposite direction of physicality. Off the top of her head, and lacking her Scan Visor at the moment, she could not fathom why someone would build something like that.

It was at this point the robot, no, gynoid, noticed her, and let out a quiet squeal of delight while bouncing once on the spot before speaking in what was only a lightly synthesized voice. "Ah, you're up! Fantastic!" At a speed that belied the robot's girth they approached and leaned against the edge of the 'bed.' "You feel ok, right? No lingering aches whatsoever? Because if there are I'd be happy to help you work them out." Unable to deal with the incredibly upfront approach she couldn't get a word out in time, and the gynoid hopped to another thought immediately. "Oh! Jacob will want to know you're up. Here, let me call him…"

At the same unreasonable speed the robot crossed the room towards what seemed to be the chamber's only door and started keying numbers into a white and blue number pad. Ten digits exactly, judging by the musical notes, before a slow, sequential buzzing filled the room.

Jacob's voice, electronically distorted, came into the room. ' _Hang on…_ " There was a gunshot, some kind of reptilian creature screamed in life-ending agony, and the man returned to the line. " _Y'ello. What's up?_ "

The gynoid spoke, still using that same enthusiastic voice. "That woman you sent us is awake, what did you call her, Samus? She's sitting up on the med bed."

Another gunshot, another beast likely roared its last. " _Fantastic! I assumed Sammy_ …" A pause. " _Dammit, sorry, Samus… was made of tough enough stuff to survive._ " A crash, metal splintering. " _I'm on speaker, right Silica?_ " After a brief confirmation by the robot Jacob continued. " _So hey, Samus, I guess I'm apologizing for screwing you over, again. Just me trying to fix a mess that I made for myself, and the universe, I guess. That's done with now, I'm sure of it. Your evil clone ran off once I splattered my evil clone across the floor, Agon has been saved, and right now I'm traipsing through the most vile swamp I have ever set foot in._ " A pause. " _And I do have to qualify that with 'swamp.' Happen to come across some Nurgle cult territory and phew, smells you did not think could exist they're so wrong._ "

She silently rolled her eyes at what seemed to be the obligatory outside-of-understanding quote.

The man continued. " _Anyway, more importantly, as I said, horrible swamp. No reason whatsoever for you to drag yourself out here so soon after, ah, recovering. So! As, again, my way of apologizing, take the day off! My entire Personal Reality is open to you. Have a real, home cooked meal. Take a nap in an actual bed. Get a massage._ " 'Silica' perked up immediately after Jacob said that, and stayed so as Jacob continued. " _Seriously, you want the massage. Silica was literally DESIGNED to give out the best massages._ " There was a splash, some more animal shrieking, and more gunshots. " _So, yeah, you have fun. I'll check back in after I've beaten every bit of candy out of this loot piñata the Luminoth call Torvus. Jumper out!_ "

The call ended and Silica turned to look at her expectantly, speaking up after about five seconds. "So? What would you like to do first?" The gynoid began gently gesticulating. "We have a very nice hot tub…

A snide voice in the back of her head remarked, 'it'd better be a really big one.'

"… It's just around time for lunch. I could take you to a bed, I mean, you'd have to borrow one of ours but I'm sure no one would mind. Or…" The gynoid's delicate fingers twitched noticeably. "We could go right to the massage?" A pause, and a gentle, deeper tinge of pink touched the robot's face. "I'm sorry, I realize I must sound very pushy right now. I can just see all those knotted, tense muscles and I, it's part of my core programming no matter how much I grow beyond it."

She stayed silent, not out of disdain, though her brain did come up with another snide remark better left unspoken. She stayed silent because, she had no idea what to do. "Day off?" "Relax?" She didn't need a hand to count how many times she'd done that. And now she was basically being told 'no, you, relax for a whole day.'

Although, she glanced towards her power suit, maybe she didn't have to? Swallowing a tiny lump of anxiety at her current situation she opened her mouth. "And, what if I just wanted to leave?"

Silica gave her a dejected look, grinning awkwardly. "Ah, yes, well, about that…" The gynoid bashfully ground the point of one high-heeled foot into the floor. "I'm afraid Jacob's the only one who can open the portal in and out of the Reality. I, suppose you could try calling him if you really don't want to stay…"

She felt a small pang of guilt at this display, alongside the flat irritation at the notification that she really didn't have a say in this matter, apparently. Jacob had sounded quite adamant over the communicator. And given how much he'd tried talking her ear off just to get her to talk back, he was probably more than stubborn enough to stick to his declaration. She was, aggravatingly, being forced to "relax."

Sighing softly, she stood up. "Fine." Her stomach, as if responding to the statement Silica had almost just made, growled loudly. "Lunch would be ok."

Visually pleased as could be, Silica beckoned her towards the door of the chamber and opened it with her other hand. And it wasn't three steps away from the table she could see out, and, more importantly, around… really nothing that special actually. It looked like little more than an archaic warehouse, albeit one crammed full of giant hunks of metal which she assumed were vehicles on account of treads and wheels.

Silica must have been paying attention, because the gynoid freely commented. "Ah, the Warehouse? Yeah, you get used to it after a while considering the artistic discrepancy between the rest of the Reality. I mean, I don't understand even the slightest bit how it works. I don't think any of us do. I think it's just a thing between Jacob and his…" The robot visibly thought hard. "… Patron? Benefactor? Jacob's always just called them 'the eyeball."

Normally she was quiet, now she felt she had a good reason to be. Chatty as Silica seemed to be, maybe she could actually learn something valuable while she was stuck here. Something about, put bluntly, what in hell Jacob was. What this place was. Where and how Jacob became so powerful. The immediate thought to pop into her brain was 'why do you care?' And she found that she couldn't answer definitively one way or the other. Did she want to understand his power to fight him? To match him? Some combination of the two? This situation was new to her.

She followed the gynoid into a separate area accessed through a door to the right, maintaining her silence, while Silica yammered on. "… And I can't wait for you to meet everyone else. I mean, naturally we were all curious about you, what with you being the first person Jacob's even mentioned in passing since he's been, well, where you are. Everything else he's told us or we've heard has been some variation of 'they're trying to kill him' and 'now they're all dead.' Just imagine our surprise when…"

In seeming direct spite of her genuine curiosity, Silica had drifted away from Jacob's nature, and she found her attention moving to other things, like the interior of the building she was being led through. Despite her inexperience with such things, the words that primarily sprang to mind were "comfortable" and "opulent." In direct contrast with the medical chamber she'd awoken in, this place was replete with soft, warm colors in several shades of brown wood. The deep burgundy carpet she walked upon partially ate her feet. The lights were just bright enough to show everything off, but not enough to glare. And the majority of the furnishings had what looked to be gold engravings and accents. So, on top of being hilariously powerful, Jacob was also wealthy? That seemed, excessive, for some reason.

At a somewhat louder volume, Silica spoke up and drew her attention again. "And, here we are at the kitchen."

Setting her gaze again to examine the room itself, she was forced to pause when a particular scent hit her nose, a very, very good scent. Something… Well, she honestly had no idea. She hadn't eaten "real" food since before she'd joined the Federation military. Ration blocks and dehydrated things that kept forever. This smell by itself? She felt her apprehension towards her forced "day off" softening, just a little bit. Secondarily, as her eyes searched for the source of the smell, her gaze fell upon another woman.

This new woman, blonde, with a head of lustrous gold cascading down her back that looked outright _sculpted_ , turned first her head for a momentary regard, and then her entire body. "Samus, yes? So happy to finally meet you." A warm, amused smile lit her porcelain face. "Well, outside of a coma, at least." The heavyset blonde curtsied lightly. "I'll save Silica the trouble of introducing me, I'm Lusamine. On behalf of myself and the others, welcome to Jacob's 'Personal Reality." A smooth gesture towards the rest of the alabaster appointed kitchen. "I'd happily introduce everyone else, but you just missed them. In fact I was just about to put lunch away." Lusamine grinned lightly. "I imagine Silica wouldn't have brought you here if you hadn't expressed an interest in it."

She nodded once, mutely. She figured at this point she didn't need to say anything, because this Lusamine seemed to already know. That would be disconcerting, but, something about just being in this other woman's presence was soothing, welcoming… Maybe it was a rude thought to have, but if she were in her power suit right now she would be scanning Lusamine _right now_. Well, her and everything else. Maybe that was the point of getting her out of it in the first place? That she wasn't trusted? That… hurt the tiniest bit. Then again, she had shot a sleeping Jacob in the face out of complete spite, regardless of if it had done any damage or not.

Lusamine had turned back to what looked to be an archaic, gas-burning stove and the steaming pot upon it, speaking as she slowly stirred whatever the fragrant contents were. "Although, I suppose you might have caught me at a bad time. This isn't our usual fare but, given that I wanted to do something with leftovers…" The blonde laughed, a sound akin to pure crystal. "I do understand that the larder is functionally infinite, but tossing everything when we're done with it just seems so wasteful." Some brown, chunk-filled liquid was drawn out into a white bowl. "I hope you're fine with beef soup." Another short laugh. "Don't tell me you're a vegetarian now and break my heart."

With a short wink that filled bowl was slid onto the counter in front of her, and Silica pulled a chair out for her. Feeling rather pressured now, she sat down and picked up the spoon provided.

Planet Aether: Torvus Bog

Jacob slogged his way along through the rain and the muck, bound for the 'undertemple' area of the bog, running through a little checklist in his head of the stuff left to claim in the area, and the things that weren't there, on account of Samus not losing them in the first place. Like the 'Boost Guardian.' Couldn't kill an empowered Ing and acquire the Boost Ball if there was no floating Boost Ball to empower the Ing in the first place. Not that it would matter even if there was, he didn't have the 'base" model and he had no interest in acquiring it. As far as he was concerned, Samus could have all of that Morph Ball-related stuff. He'd stay in his "blow everything the fuck up" lane.

He smirked to himself at the thought. "I wonder if the Luminoth will have anything to say when they all pop out of their pods and find that Torvus and Agon have been practically razed of animal life. I mean, by this point I've probably killed enough Grenchlers to render the species non-viable." He cackled out loud, enjoying the way his armor distorted his voice, and that same voice reverberating off the walls of the tunnel he currently occupied. "Do I go for the genocide?"

He laughed again, fully aware internally that he sounded like a psychopath, more like a Chaos Space Marine than a typical, stoic, champion of the Imperium. He was in good company for that, though. Considering that Samus wanted the same thing for the Space Pirates. Difference being, he actually _could_ wipe out the Grenchlers, what with them only living on one planet, and not having the rudimentary sense of self-preservation to run the fuck away and hide when a walking apocalypse was intruding on their turf. And in regard he could somewhat fairly attribute that moniker to both Samus and himself, the former obviously at a lesser degree. She had to shoot a Grenchler in the back to actually hurt one, for instance.

He paused for a moment, curiosity spiking as he wondered how exactly Samus was faring with her 'encouraged' day off. He was certain that his Reality was not lacking in any conceivable amenity, save a gym, but it was actually a question of whether Samus was going to be a stick in the mud or not. Mrs 'super serious' and what not.

Resuming his inexorable forward march he brought a hand up and tapped the side of his helmet, calling in to the extra-dimensional space via pure BS-magical Jump fiat. "Hello, anyone listening?"

There was a moment of suspense offered by the ring-tone before someone on the other end of the line picked up. " _Jacob?_ "

He smiled, just hearing the sound of her voice enough to lift his mood. "Solei, how's my cuddle-bug space-elf princess?"

A short giggle answered his quip. " _You should know by now; just another day in paradise, lounging the day away by the pool._ " A small rustle of silken fabric and the low creaking of a beach lounge carried over the line. " _That girl you sent us is quite the character._ "

He rolled his eyes as he walked into the elevator. "You don't say?" He laughed at his own sarcasm. "Do elaborate, I'm curious how she's handling being forced to relax, especially in your company."

As the elevator began to descend Solei began her account. " _Well, Lusamine's gone off to manage her business. But before she did she got to serve your guest a nice, wholesome lunch. Said Samus just about moaned at the first spoonful._ " The elf princess paused for a long moment. " _Vanessa's being quite the broken record trying to get our guest in the pool, but that's not going very well. Offered her an old suit and everything._ "

His brain sparked with an amusing, if probably stupid question. "Could Samus actually swim?" Her power suit was obviously too heavy for it, but she'd never, to his knowledge, entered water without that armor on… Heh, when he went back to pick her up he'd have to needle her about it, see if it got a reaction. Still, he found it unlikely that with all that advanced Chozo-warrior training, swimming hadn't been involved at one point or another.

Turning his attention back to the conversation, as he literally had nothing better to do right now, he spoke. "What's she doing now?"

Solei answered. " _Just sitting by the edge of the pool, knees up to her chest. Though now that I look closely I think she might be listening to what I'm saying._ "

He smirked. "And you're probably right. Space-bird DNA augmentation would probably cover advanced hearing." The elevator reached the bottom. He walked forward and kicked the next hatch open. "Maybe you should give her an out. I'm guessing she's uncomfortable with the 'comparisons.' You don't plan on nodding off in bed anytime soon, right? I bring it up because you objectively have the fluffiest sleeping arrangement."

Solei voiced her approval with a slight giggle, and a comment about how Silica would probably take it as the perfect opportunity, before hanging up the phone on her end and leaving him in the dingy, damp depths of Torvus all by himself again.

He walked up to the edge of the landing at the top of the shaft, looking down into the murky water below. "Let's see; giant crocodile fish, long underwater tunnels, a really big crocodile fish, Gravity Booster…" he paused to 'hmmm' loudly. "Are the Power Bombs going to be down there? I don't think Samus had those when she originally lands here…" He took a moment to consider the potential uses. "Fuck it, might as well check. And if they are there I guess I can chuck Power Bombs like baseballs without the Morph Ball." He brought a hand to the front of his helmet and mimed pinching his nose. "Geronimo!"

He dove right into the water, feet first. If anything living happened to be in the way, it wasn't going to be alive for much longer.

Personal Reality:

Samus Aran quietly followed the woman who had introduced herself as 'Solei' out of the pool area and back into the little maze of opulent corridors Silica had guided her through only a little while ago. Though at the moment she wasn't focused on the decoration. She was, instead, trying to not stare. The pointy-eared women was, very insubstantially attired. And it wasn't that she didn't understand that it was swimwear, but… _why_?

Her gaze betrayed her, and her eyes fell to the shiny yellow bit of… dental floss that was swallowed by the other woman's wide, slowly swaying butt cheeks. Solei was undeniably, and apparently unabashedly, plump. But even taking that into consideration Solei's proportions were _excessive_. And those same proportions were covered by an amount of fabric she felt wouldn't amount to a single hand-span. The underwear she wore once in a blue moon with her casual attire was more substantial. This comparison was fueling an unfamiliar feeling in the back of her head that, burned, was maybe the right word.

Solei stopped and spun about on her high-heeled feet, gesturing to the door immediately to her right. "Here we are. You go on in and make yourself comfortable." A broad, warm smile. "I'm sure one of us will be by in a little while to check on you."

She mumbled a barely audible 'thank you,' slipped into the room, and closed the door before her eyes, or more specifically where they were wandering, got her in trouble with these nice, if strange, people. 'Safe,' so to speak, her gaze turned to the room… and just about burned out of her head at the sheer level of _pink_ lain out before her. Pink and lace, and ruffles. There was a giant, stuffed bear clutching a heart in one corner of the room. The bed was covered in square, slightly shiny throw pillows… The sheer contrast between the hallway and this room _hurt_. But, again, these people were being nice to her for no apparent reason other than Jacob asking them to. So she had no floor to stand on when it came to complaining.

She looked back to the bed, paused for a few moments to try and visually appraise it, and mumbled to herself. "I guess, that's why I'm in here."

She took the four steps necessary to reach the bed and leaned over to test the give, and was forced to let out a small yelp of surprise when there was so little resistance her testing hand just kept going and going… she fell face first into the eye-gougingly pink mattress. And, wow, as much as it felt like the bed was trying to eat her she couldn't say it wasn't comfortable. But as far as 'falling asleep' was concerned, she didn't particularly feel like it. She had just come out of a coma, after all. She'd had plenty of "rest" for quite a while. But, at least the temporary solitude would be nice. She could get a break from-

A knock on the door, one distinctly metallic. "Samus?"

She grumbled morosely into the pillow, waiting exactly five seconds before responding as she knew she had to. "Yes?"

Silica opened the door, partially leaning in. "I hope you don't mind, but my sensors assure me that you are in no physical or mental state for sleeping. And I just thought I could help out with that."

She paused for a moment, struck by the novelty of _her_ being the one on the receiving end of an invasive scan. Otherwise, she didn't _really_ have a particular objection to what Silica had been trying to push since she awoke. Apart from awkwardness. Still, she supposed it was the least she could allow to be accommodating on her end. Silently, without moving too much, she gesticulated her consent.

Silica approached, joy etched into her synthetic face. "Oh thank you, it's _stressful_ for me seeing other people stressed." Despite the futility of the gesture, the gynoid cleared her 'throat.' "Just a fair forewarning, my hands and fingers are thermally regulated for maximum relaxation. You may feel both heat and cold at various points ahead."

She didn't have much time to contemplate the statement before a feather-light touch burrowed into a spot between her shoulder-blades. Almost instantly she felt her body going slack, so much so she momentarily had a flash of concern that she'd been injected with a paralytic. But, she could still move… Just, right now she didn't want to…

*Author's Note: I've been sitting on this for a little bit, on purpose or not I'm not sure. It's funny, I have the perfect image of how this story plays out given the Jump Document I used to structure this, but it gets jumbled and muddled when I'm trying to put it to text. Hilariously OP protagonist doesn't help. Lol, but that's Jumpchain for you.*


	5. Chapter 4: An Ending On Aether

Chapter 4: An Ending on Aether

"Personal Reality"

Samus Aran sluggishly stirred from slumber, despite a feeling deep down that vehemently wanted to stay just like this for, oh, forever? She literally could not dredge up a time that she had ever been this comfortable. Warm, soft, enveloped… enveloped? At an uncharacteristically sluggish pace she forced her eyes open bit by bit, only to find that she had a guest in the bed she'd laid down in. Silica had taken a spot right behind her, was currently embracing her, and given how big-bodied the gynoid was she was almost completely "eaten…" It didn't feel bad though, unusually cool for being hugged… Not that she had any recent experience to compare it to…

From the other direction, 'ahead' of her, came a now familiar voice. "I know, shocking how comfy it is, right?"

If she weren't so comfortable right now, she would have jumped. But as it was she just quietly glared at the unflappable man. Naturally, he didn't seem to care.

Jacob held up her power suit by the scruff of its neck, with all the apparent effort of a piece of paper. "Ready to get going? Got a spot all picked out for us to explore that shouldn't be out of your depth." The smallest flash of a scowl crossed his face. "That sounded really, really condescending. Sorry."

She let out the smallest of sighs, incapable of feeling properly angry right now. "You do have that right, given, things."

That same smile. "You know, I did have this whole melodramatic spiel prepared for your first words to me, but you spoiled it by talking to the girls first." He laughed, intimating that he was again not bothered at all. "Now? I'm just gonna leave this room so you can get dressed." Jacob stood up, gave her a wink, and walked out. And then half a second later poked his head back in. "Don't keep me waiting too long, or I might just leave you here."

She grumbled quietly, a voice in the back of her head making a very strong case for taking him up on that if she could just, lay right here for a _lot_ longer… One of Silica's hands started gently petting her head. "Don't worry, I'll still be here if you come back."

That reassurance, plus the visor of her power suit silently judging her moment of weakness, drove her to actually drag herself out of bed. How she had never thought that thought would cross her mind…

Planet Aether: Sanctuary Approach

Jacob marched along, Samus at his side, humming the area theme from the games softly to himself. His favorite bounty hunter… his favorite _lady_ bounty hunter, hadn't said anything else since he'd led the two of them out of his Reality, but he had expected as much given how much work it had taken for the girls to get words out of the blonde. But hey, she _could_ talk, and that was good enough for him. If she wanted to do so more, he'd let that happen at its own pace now. Besides, he had, what, eight something years left in this galaxy?

He mumbled to himself. "Damn decade always takes too long. Only so much fucking around you can do till aggravation sets in…" He heard a sound, and it took about three seconds to realize it was a word. "Yeah Samus?"

Slowly, falteringly, she spoke. "So… them."

Despite how completely nebulous the statement was, he figured he didn't have to be a genius to figure out who she was talking about. "The girls? What about them?"

At the same glacial speed, five whole seconds later, Samus 'elaborated.' "How, did you meet?"

He 'hmmed' dramatically, coinciding with rolling his head. " _WELLL_. Now that's one heckuva story." He slung his gun, bringing up his fingers to count off. "Well Lusamine, you now, Mrs. 'impossible hairstyle,' she's my first wife. We met early into me getting kicked off across the multiverse and…" He chuckled a bit. "I mean, I figured you've got it by now that I'm not from here, your universe, at all. Extradimensional space, tech that outshines the Chozo…" He shook his head once. "I'm getting off track. Anyway, Lusamine. She got possessed, and I stopped her from destroying the world." He shrugged. "I mean, it's understandable, but people start walking on eggshells around someone when they 'almost destroy the world' whether it was their fault or not. Me? I'm crazy." He laughed. "And I mean, you got a look at her right? Isn't she just a _dish_ and a half? More importantly, I saw her off on her own and was like 'she looks like she could use a friend.' You can see where that led. And considering that her former husband vanished into a digital nowhere there was no guilt on either of our parts!" Samus was giving him a very obvious, wide-eyed 'what the fuck am I hearing' face. But, she'd asked the question, and by jove he was going to answer. "Everyone else: Solei, Silica, Zephyr, Vanessa. I know this is going to sound super horrible, but I got a package deal on them. Spent some time as a space-faring ner-do-well and I beat up and board some pirates. All of them were slaves." He paused. "Ok, well, technically Silica was deactivated in a junkyard, and I just kind of stumbled upon her by accident. But _details_."

Automatically, given how intimately he was familiar with this particular hallway out of the many, many hallways on the planet, he shoulder-checked his way through the hatch that opened up to the front of Sanctuary Fortress.

He made a grand, sweeping gesture with both his arms, presenting the place to Samus. "Past details of mine aside for a second, behold! Techno-fortress of awesome! Robots, 'living' data drones, and the front door of the Ing Hive." He paused, remembering that _he_ was the one with the Dark Suit _and_ the one whom had technically purchased the 'Light Suit' before he'd even entered this universe. "But we won't be going there. The Dark World would kill you just for standing in it." He chuckled awkwardly. "Yeah, uh, just, don't think about that part. The Hive's a boring place anyway."

To her credit, Samus looked absolutely jaded about his whole speech about the Fortress. So he didn't figure he'd bungled his social-fu all that badly. Then again, thinking about it inside the privacy of his own head, he was struck again by the chain of contrivance Metroid Prime 2 operated on. Without the 'Energy Transfer Module,' which he'd naturally snatched up long before Samus had arrived on-planet, any old Ing could just possess Samus at their leisure. And Samus would never have encountered "pure" Ing until both acquiring the module and entering the Dark world for the first time in the Agon Wastes, by which point she was already immune to Ing possession by virtue of having picked up the big macguffin. Who the fuck thought any of this was 'organic' storytelling?

Sanctuary Fortress: Hall of Combat Mastery

Samus Aran quietly walked along at Jacob's side, alert, wary, but at the same time distracted. Paradoxical, of course, but warranted. The machines littering Sanctuary Fortress were formidable, requiring a two-step process for her to destroy them. Blow up the head-module, and then bait the leg module into spinning so she could disrupt and break it with the Boost Ball. Well, that was _her_ process for them, anyway.

"Scrap another one!" She looked over to see Jacob joyously proclaiming another victory as he bodily ripped one of the leg modules apart, grabbing it mid-spin before violently pulling in opposite directions. The man was sandbagging, she knew that, and she was rather sure he knew that she knew. Instead of that terrifyingly powerful bullet weapon, either of the two he'd shown for that matter, he was using the 'nova beam' analogue to her power beam. And he was bothering to engage in melee, period. He'd gotten into a boxing match with one of the larger 'Ingsmasher' robots for no valid reason beyond 'it seemed fun.' She felt that she should be insulted… but Jacob was just having such a grand time she couldn't be angry about it. Honestly, it was rather enviable. She would have figured being so powerful that nothing on-scale you could encounter was even remotely a threat would be, boring? Annoying? Her power suit required her to maintain a serene mental state for it to function properly, but she would be lying if she were to say that getting bogged down by, say, a swarm of insects, wasn't a massive chore at the best of times. Jacob didn't have to do any of this, he could probably walk from one end of this fortress to the other able to utterly ignore anything attacking him, but he chose to engage, simply because he found it fun.

Savagely hurling a broken leg unit like it were a throwing knife and impaling a head module, incidentally disabling the last of the local threats, Jacob stopped and started looking off left and right. "Ok, so… it was this way?" He took two steps, stopped again, and turned around. "No, this way…?" Jacob glanced left and right again before quietly cursing. "Fuck…"

The man's left hand came up, and a holographic image emerged that slowly expanded, and then expanded some more. She wouldn't claim to be an expert on the area, but she had the sneaking suspicion that display was a map of the fortress. Why he hadn't been using such a thing religiously up to now was an inscrutable mystery.

Unused to the notion of asking questions, it took her a moment to make her point. "Where, exactly are we going?"

Irritably spinning, zooming in, and panning out of the 'map,' Jacob answered. "I forget what the place is called, 'dynamo works' maybe. Anyway, somewhere off the main temple of this place. If I could find the fucking thing…" After about five more seconds the man remarked aloud. "I fucking suck at reading maps…"

She had to quietly ask herself this, was he faking incompetence to give her an opportunity to feel useful? Because that seemed to be the point of this whole venture right now. But… if he wasn't… She slid her way over, keeping herself in Jacob's very large shadow to try and do this quietly. The map, if map it was, was a convoluted mess. None of the 'chambers' were labeled, and the only point of reference was a big arrow she would assume was a 'you are here.' Yes, she figured Jacob had every right to be confused if this was his 'map' software, and the idea that her Chozo inheritance was superior in at least one small way momentarily painted a smug grin across her face.

As she was about to speak up, offer a possible destination, Jacob jabbed one of his armored fingers into the display, singling out a large chamber in the holographic fortress. "Well fucking duh." The man looked to where she had been standing, paused long enough to locate where she had moved to, and spoke with a pleased lilt to his voice. "I got it, figured it out." He pointed off to his left. "This way."

The giant of a man made a rather obvious gesture inviting her to go first, and… had she just been had, or was she looking too far into things?

Sanctuary Fortress: Dynamo Works

Jacob quietly waited outside what he knew to be the 'boss zone' of the Spider Guardian, whiling away the whatever length of time it took for Samus to kill the augmented pill bug by looking off into the techno-cloudy sky that surrounded Sanctuary Fortress. He fully expected that she would win, not just because of who she was but, honestly, from what he remembered of the "boss" a monkey could beat the damn thing. Technically speaking he wouldn't even call it a boss, just a puzzle with a roaming, predictably moving hazard. But, hey, hindsight was 20/20… was it appropriate for him to think that when he hadn't designed the game/world he was currently living in?

He laughed to the empty sky. "Cheap words from me when I come in with all the practical meta-knowledge I need to run roughshod on everyone."

Seated on the edge of one of Metroid's ubiquitous hovering platforms, albeit this one being one of the significantly chunkier ones, he idly swung his feet over the abyss. He couldn't help but think, given the context of the Aether situation, Samus really didn't have anything else to do here with the Spider Guardian dead. Without the Dark Suit, currently solidly fused into his armor, Samus could not survive significant sections of Aether's dark world. Pointedly, in what would normally be the 'imminent' future, the Quadraxis fight would be absolutely impossible for her to live through, by that simple omission from her arsenal. Even if she didn't get hit by anything, the atmosphere by itself would kill her. The Emperor Ing? Not even worth considering. So, how was he going to broach _that_ conversation?

He mumbled to the same empty sky. "She's pretty stubborn. I mean, part of why I like her but, going to complicate things. How am I going to tell her that the only thing really left to do on this rock is go on a giant scavenger hunt across the dark world for twelve fucking keys?" He let out a long sigh, one that sounded like a bear growl due to his armor's voice-filter. "Padding, time padding is all that fucking was…"

Back to his problem, and it felt like an insult to Samus to technically be calling her a "problem," how did you tell the protagonist of a franchise, essentially, 'fuck off, I got this?' On the one, she was probably more than rational enough to grasp 'yeah, I'm not needed here anymore. In fact I'd be an active hindrance.' But, at the same time it just felt, disrespectful… Well, typical Jumper problems he would reckon. Ever since BROFORCE he'd been basically immortal, and while at the time he just been one of the BRO's, everything after had benefit from being nigh impossible to keep down. Fiat-backed 'can't die unless decapitated, and respawn three times anyway' went a long way, even in a universe as hilariously off-the-chain as Warhammer 40K. And he'd experience that universe of war _twice_ , both for unprecedented lengths of time because he was a greedy madman. "Extended Jump Duration?" His patron offered as a "Drawback?" He said, "Free Points."

He heard the soft, rolling sound of metal on metal and let out a sigh. "Well, let's have this chat then…"

He stood, fixing his gaze upon the tube Samus had gone down to face the Spider Guardian. Naturally, given her almost narrative-assured predilection for victory, she emerged seemingly no worse for wear… pft, probably hadn't even been hit. The power of plot-armor was strong. He couldn't help but chuckle a little, in spite of himself. As he again was reminded that, left to her own devices, Samus would literally never lose to anything or anyone in any established chunk of lore.

He cleared his throat to refocus. "Well, you got your toy then. Fished out the energy tank in the back too?" Samus nodded once, hesitating only a moment, because of course she was just as much treasure hunter as bounty hunter, and he went on. "Good, good. Uh, so, real talk for a second. The rest of the critical stuff just, you know, happens to be in the Dark World. And, uh…"

Samus finished the thought for him, in her typical, borderline monotone voice. "I don't have the equipment to survive the Dark World, so I'm a hindrance."

He pursed his lips for a moment, glad for his helmet, and responded. "Well, yeah. I wasn't going to put it that way but, sure."

The blonde nodded once, eyes revealing nothing of what she was feeling about the matter. "I'll head back to my ship then, go inform the Federation about what happened to its troopers."

Samus took three steps away before he barked, "Wait." His hand extended towards the bounty hunter, he awkwardly elaborated. "Ah, let me walk you back."

Samus's eyes again told him nothing, but her tone dropped a little. "You, don't have to do that."

He shrugged and walked up beside her. "I know, I just want to."

Samus half-turned away from him, not responding for a good long while. "You, don't have to. You have nothing left to apologize for."

He did a small double-take. "Wait, you think that, you think that I was, you think I wanted to be nice to you out of self-imposed obligation?" He couldn't help but let out a short laugh. "Lady, you are the same bounty hunter that's saved the galaxy a couple of times, right? You don't think that's earned you a bit of goodwill? A little bit of your own happiness? Come on. Least I can do is pony up a small measure of what you deserve."

There was another long pause before Samus responded. "Is, that what this was?"

Confused for a moment, scratching at his helmet as if it were his scalp, he answered. "Yes? You do deserve more than just getting paid."

Yet another long moment passed in silence, and then Samus voice sounded, and her words were cold. "I can find my own way back."

Confused again, he stood there and watched Samus march off back the way they had come to this chamber with one hand and one finger raised silently after her, his mouth hanging open. He considered for a moment, and determined that she would be able to get back on her own. The various "locked" doors that might have otherwise been in her way had been smashed open by him, so, that was that for this encounter?

He scratched at his head again before shrugging. "Well, that could have gone better? I guess?" He glanced off into the techno-sky for a few seconds, and shrugged again. "Well, I'll run into her again for the events of Prime 3. Then I can figure out what the hell that was." He started walking, incidentally in the same direction as Samus. "Now where the hell were those twelve keys... Fuck, gotta fight the giant robot first…"


End file.
